Professor Ashok Khurana
Professor Ashok Khurana is the Research Program Director for Climate Change and Energy Transition and has had extensive careers in academia, oil and gas industry, CSIRO and government.
Professor Ashok Khurana
Program Director, Climate Change and Energy Transition
Ashok has held professorial positions at the University of New South Wales, Curtin University of Technology and the University of Adelaide. At Curtin he established and was the inaugural Head of School of Petroleum Engineering.
Ashok has extensive experience in the worldwide Petroleum Exploration and Production industry, with career highlights being the development of oil and gas production facilities in the Gippsland Basin, (SE Australia), UK North Sea, Malaysia and many other countries in SE Asia.
Ashok’s focus in the area of Climate Change and Energy Transition is to facilitate meaningful co-operation and collaboration between the many stakeholders in order to chart smooth pathways towards a low carbon future. He believes that the critical hurdles to this end are no longer technical but are now dominated by inter-societal equity and social economics.
Ashok earned his doctorate from Imperial College, London, is a Distinguished Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and a past Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia. He has authored a number of scholarly articles, internal company reports and three technical eBooks.
He supports several philanthropic endeavours including sponsorship of major Master’s scholarships in Arts, Science and Engineering and Music at The University of Adelaide, Australia and at Amity University, India. He has served on the Heriot-Watt University, Strathclyde University, UK and the Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide Advisory Boards and is a Member of The Board of Benefactors of The University of Adelaide.